


Heaven After All

by NancyTWriter



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 09:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30053418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NancyTWriter/pseuds/NancyTWriter
Summary: Actually, yes, there is heartbreak in Heaven. But there's also always hope. An attempt to patch holes in the series finale.





	Heaven After All

[Deepest thanks to the creator, writers, cast, and crew of “Supernatural” for 15 years of outstanding and thoughtful entertainment. And personal thanks to Dr. Jeanne Mosca, and my great friends Robyn – who brought up a really good point about food in Heaven! – and Elisa, who helped me work through a story sticking point.

[“Supernatural” is copyrighted by Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc.]

After Castiel had rebelled against Heaven on behalf of humanity, he’d spent a lot of time dodging enraged archangels, but he’d been around to help Sam and Dean on a few cases. Dean hadn’t wondered why. He was just grateful for the powerful backup, although he did wonder sometimes if he could really trust a being who still acted like an on-duty soldier of an alien army.

At one point, he and Sam had been tracking a firestarter who hired out as an arsonist and hitman. By the time they’d figured out that the guy’s current target was a corporate accountant who was asking awkward questions about the company’s finances, it was almost too late. The accountant and her young son were asleep, and the firestarter was in the house, just as he and Sam got there. Sam had been forced to use the weapon that would turn the firestarter’s power back on him, and a whole wall had gone up, along with the firestarter. As Sam completed the plan that was supposed to happen in the firestarter’s own home, Dean woke the woman and child to get them out of the house.

And just as he was ready to run a fire gantlet with the kid in his arms, the flames died down, and Castiel opened the front door.

The accountant and Dean ran to the opening, both of them coughing. Dean put the little boy down beside his mother on the lawn, stepped away, and asked Cas in a rasping voice, “Sam?”

“He is out of the house, calling the fire department.”

“Good. Good man. Thanks.” Dean’s coughs echoed the accountant’s, but the little boy seemed more upset than injured. He was wailing, “Bear! Bear!”

“I’ve reduced the fire, but I assume that putting it out completely would raise questions.”

“Exactly. Sam planted a gas can and lighter near the firestarter’s corpse, and I’ve already put her boss’s card in the jerk’s house.” Dean wiped his smoke-stung eyes as the child continued to cry. “So it’s a frame-up, but we’re framing what really happened. The boss did hire that guy to kill – ”

He broke off as the little boy began to wail again, and his mother, sitting on the grass, enfolded him. “Oh honey, I’m so sorry, but we’re all right, that’s the important part.”

“Bear,” the little boy sobbed.

With a horrible twinge, Dean moved back to the victims. “That’s not – a dog, is it?”

“No.” The woman tried to smile up at him. “His teddy bear. It’s been important to him since his father and I divorced. I’m sorry.” She bowed her head, coughing, then tried to smile at the little boy. “I’ll get you another. You’ll love it just as much.”

“Bear,” the child whispered, hugging his mother’s neck.

“Is this the toy in question?” Castiel asked.

Dean hadn’t even seen him vanish. He was just suddenly standing there holding a light-brown teddy bear with big black eyes, a little red smile, and one singed paw.

The little boy didn’t yell and cheer, as Dean thought he would. He just wrapped the teddy bear in both arms and looked up at Castiel as if he were God.

The accountant cleared her throat. “Oh, that’s – You’re so – But you didn’t go back in there for that, did you?”

Castiel, always bad at lying, shifted his gaze. Dean said, “I think it was right inside the front door. I thought your son dropped something about there, but I was focused on us getting out.”

“I’ll never be able to thank you enough,” the woman said, standing. “Who are you? How did you – ”

“We were just driving by and saw smoke coming out of the house,” Dean said. “I’m going to check on my brother, he’s calling the fire department out back.”

“What are your names? I want to tell people what you did for us.”

“I’m Jon, this is Mike. I’ll bring my brother around, you can thank him too.”

As they moved away, Castiel murmured, “I don’t feel comfortable taking Michael’s name.”

“It’s OK, she’ll never see you again. Hey.” Out of sight of the woman, at the side of the house, Dean stopped. “Where was the teddy bear?”

“In the child’s bed, which was surrounded by fire.”

“Damn.” Dean shook his head. Then he grinned at Cas. “And you went back in there for a toy?”

“Your relationship with the Impala has taught me that inanimate objects sometimes carry great emotional importance for people.”

“Really?”

“I didn’t think,” Castiel spoke in a measured tone, “that there was much a human could teach me, even about humanity. I was wrong. You have taught me a great deal.”

An odd feeling ran through Dean: warmth in the chest, and a cold twist in the gut.

There was only one way to respond to a rush of feeling like that – a joke. He lowered his voice. “Hope you haven’t forgotten the one most important thing I’ve taught you.”

Just a flicker of concern on Cas’ face, since of course he didn’t know what Dean meant. “What is that?”

With all the quiet intensity Dean could muster: “Zeppelin rules.”

Castiel blinked, then nodded once. “Yes. I will find that useful if I’m ever called on to influence an aficionado of classical rock music.”

Dean was about to tell him “That was a joke,” when Cas smiled – a tiny arc of a smile that reminded him of the teddy bear.

Dean burst into laughter, because that was another way of hiding a rush of feeling, and Cas looked pleased. “You’re a funny guy,” he said, reaching out to clap Cas’ arm quickly. His gaze met Cas’, and he immediately started looking around. Fortunately there was something to see.

He pointed. “Sam’s got the car, coming down the street. Want a lift?”

After a moment, Cas shook his head. “I’m afraid that my presence might endanger you, if Zachariah somehow finds me.”

“You just dropped by when you saw us in a burning house.”

“I felt it was important that you were safe.”

Dean’s gaze fled again, as Sam pulled up to the curb and as sirens started drawing close. When he looked back, Cas was gone.

And why was he remembering that now?

Monstrous evil, human fear. Flame and noise and a child sobbing. An angel condemned to death by other angels. They were all part of another life.

Because that was what it felt like. He sure didn’t feel dead now. He felt maybe more alive than he’d felt since he’d been tortured in Hell years before.

He could even think about Hell calmly. Because he was out of its reach forever, safe and at peace.

He leaned on the bridge railing, looking at the view. The river rippled and ran sparkling under a sun that was warm on his face. There was birdsong in Heaven, wafted on a light breeze that rippled trees along the river banks as far as he could see. Even the bridge was perfect – modern enough to allow the Impala, old-fashioned enough that you could lean on a railing.

He was a little curious as to why he hadn’t seen Cas. But the angel was probably still busy helping reorganize Heaven, as Bobby had said. And Cas had sure been there for them in life, when they needed him. Suddenly appearing in an open door as flames miraculously died down.

Dean drew and let out a long breath, letting the murmuring blue water replace the fire in his mind. He wasn’t on edge, not even a little. He didn’t have the prickle at the back of his neck that he’d normally have had when exposing his back to open space. He knew, through his whole being, that this place was safe.

So why did something feel off?

Not bad. Just – missing. Like he’d forgotten something he was supposed to do.

It’s Heaven, Dean thought. What, did I leave a shirt in the laundromat somewhere?

Actually, what do we do about clothes here? Just wear the same ones for all time? ’Cause I’m not sure I’d have picked this jacket to spend eternity in. 

And he was wearing his old brown leather bomber jacket.

He caught his breath, then laughed. He ran his hand over the sleeve, breathed in the smell of it, memories rushing back.

A lot of them were painful. That was weird. You’d think Heaven would be pain-free. But he didn’t feel rage or heartbreak at the bad memories; more sympathy for Sam, Dad, himself.

Maybe that was the weird missing feeling. He’d been reluctant to run over to Mom and Dad the moment he got here. It was like he wanted to meet Heaven on his own terms, before Dad weighed in with advice or reproach.

The jacket felt close suddenly, heavy with the weight of his father’s expectations. He changed it back to the windbreaker. He could always get the jacket again, he was sure.

How far could he take this anyway?

Like, could he be taller than Sam?

And he was looking over the scenery from six inches higher above the railing.

He laughed, returning to his normal height. He’d have to try that sometime when Sam got here.

He hoped that Sam wasn’t too miserable. He remembered the desperation he’d felt when that knife had severed Sam’s spine. Man, life was a lousy place to be alone.

Sam was better at being alone than he himself was, though. And maybe he’d find Eileen, they could be together. Raise a bunch of little hunters.

He chuckled, shook his head. No, he wouldn’t wish that on anyone’s kids. Sam should find Eileen and a nice little house in a nice little town somewhere, live the apple-pie life he himself had found so constraining.

He wondered if he could see Sam. Do a little benevolent haunting.

He focused on the idea for a moment, but nothing happened. Yeah, probably just as well. Maybe he could see Sam sometime later, when he was more welded to Heaven. Maybe when he didn’t have this nagging feeling that something needed to be done.

He should ask Cas about it – but he pulled away from the thought. He didn’t need advice on this. He just needed to figure it out.

The memory of Cas standing there, tears in his eyes, about to be swallowed by infinite emptiness, but radiating a blissful joy just because he could say –

OK, well, no point in dwelling on it. Bobby said Cas was around, helping to put Heaven back together. Cas was always happy when he felt like he was helping God. (Jack. Whoever.)

And then the mental itch dropped to no importance as he felt familiar energy, familiar joy, flood through him. Sam was here.

Sam stood beside him at the bridge railing and they smiled at each other. Dean didn’t even need to make a wisecrack. He kind of wondered what had brought Sam here, but right now he was content just to enjoy Sam’s presence, Sam’s own joy.

Then the air between them flashed a muted red, and Dean felt warmth rush through him for an instant.

Sam looked so startled that he’d obviously seen and felt it too. “What was that?”

“I don’t know. Are you hurt?”

“No.” Sam looked like he was focusing. “Felt kind of good, actually. Maybe it happens for everyone who’s a newbie in Heaven when they see their loved ones.”

“Well, it didn’t happen with me and Bobby.”

“How about with Mom and Dad?” 

“Haven’t seen ’em yet.”

“You haven’t?”

“No. I just got here, you know. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to save you from whatever got you.”

Sam was looking at him oddly. “Well, you probably couldn’t have done much about heart failure.”

Dean hadn’t thought it would be possible to be astonished in Heaven, but it was. His jaw literally dropped. “Heart? Failure?”

“Well, yeah, Dean. I’m seventy-eight years old.”

“Seventy – man – You – ” Dean recuperated. “You look damn good for seventy-eight.”

Sam looked himself over, his clothes. “You know, I wouldn’t have traded a day of it to be younger – the experiences, the people I loved, the knowledge. But I’ve gotta say, it’s great to be young and healthy again.”

“The people you loved – ” Dean hesitated, then knew somehow that just asking questions wouldn’t hurt anyone, not anymore. “Does that include Eileen?”

“It does. And our son Dean.”

After a moment, “Thanks, man.”

“There wasn’t a day.” Sam hesitated. “There wasn’t a day that went by in forty years that I didn’t think about you. At first it hurt, but I’d rather feel the pain of grief than never have known you. And then sometimes I’d think about what you would have said about something, and it made me laugh. Or I’d remember something that you did say, and it made me think.”

“Sorry you had to go through that.”

“Well, it was necessary for the development of my soul. At least that’s what Cas said.”

“You saw Cas after Jack pulled him out of the empty?”

And this time, Sam was the astonished one. “Yeah, haven’t you?”

Dean shook his head, a little perturbed. Then he said, “But I haven’t been here that long.”

“I didn’t see him for a while. After what you told me, I knew he was gone. But then I started figuring, if Lucifer could be pulled out of the empty, why couldn’t Jack pull Cas out of there? And why couldn’t He restore you to me? I had a lot of anger and doubt there for a while, Dean. And it wasn’t like I dropped it all, but as I learned to go on and live my life, I sort of accepted that I was pissed off and didn’t let it get in the way of building a life. And then, the day after I proposed to Eileen, Cas showed up in my office.”

“He did? – Wait, you had an office?”

“Yeah, I – by that time, I’d given up hunting. Eileen, too.” Sam looked around wistfully. “I thought for sure she’d be here to greet me.”

“Oh, man. Did she die on you too?”

Sam nodded, still looking around. “But you know, we had – it freaked me out a little when I realized this – we had more time together than I had with you. I thought for sure she’d be right here.”

“Well, let’s get on back to Bobby. He seems to know about this place pretty well. Maybe Eileen’s at Harvelle’s Roadhouse with him, knocking back a beer.”

Sam laughed, folding himself into the passenger seat of the Impala as Dean jumped into the driver’s seat and turned the key.

The car gave the sad, tired roar of a dying lion, and went silent.

“Are you kidding me?” Dean inquired, and turned the key again. Same result.

Sam looked baffled but amused. “Car breakdown in Heaven. Sounds like a country song.”

“That’s not a breakdown, the car’s out of gas.”

“Well – ” Sam was still amused – “if you’ve been driving it for forty years – ”

“I guess.” Dean tried the ignition again, but Baby still wouldn’t start. “I remember, when I got in the car a while ago, I saw the tank was full. I thought, beautiful day, beautiful scenery, Bobby’s here, Mom and Dad are here, tank full of gas – yeah, this is Heaven all right. How could – ”

“So Bobby knows where Mom and Dad are?”

“Yeah, I was going to go see them after I took a drive.” Dean tried one last time. “Well, I guess we’re walkin’.”

“I guess we are.” As they got out, Sam asked, “How far is it?”

“I don’t know. It didn’t seem like that long a drive. Bobby said time moves differently up here.”

“Yeah, I’m guessing that if we want to get to Bobby, and start, it’ll be pretty quick.”

Dean grinned as they fell into step, sun warm on the backs of their necks, following the quiet road. “You’re an expert on Heaven already, huh?”

“Guessing, all guessing.”

Dean took a breath. “So you – saw Cas. Down there.”

“Yeah. I read him out, at first. Shouldn’t have done that. He took it like he always did, forgiving.” Sam didn’t notice Dean’s wince, so maybe it was only mental. “He told me that he wished he could have come sooner, but what I went through after you died was necessary for the development of my soul. I kind of got the feeling that he wasn’t really supposed to be there even then. But he told me that you were in Heaven, and happy, and that we’d see each other again someday. It meant a lot to me. When he left I thought I’d never see him again. I guess, unless you’re deeply involved in plots by rogue angels, you’re probably not getting visited by a good angel on a regular basis. But I did see him one more time, after Eileen died.”

“Did she get sick too?”

“No, it was – Cars in our time have safety controls, they’re essentially self-driving. But some guy decided that his freedom to do what he wanted was too important, and took off the controls. He hit Eileen and killed her.”

This time Dean’s wince was obvious. “Man. I hate it when it sounds like a jerk did something I would have done.”

“No, you wouldn’t – Well, you might have taken off the controls, but you’d have done it on the Free Routes, where it’s legal, or out in the country somewhere. You wouldn’t have done it right in the middle of a shopping district. The worst part was that I was getting really pretty disabled right then – they can do amazing things for heart in our time, but they can’t do everything. I felt like the world had ended.”

“You didn’t deserve that.”

“It’s OK. Now. It wasn’t at the time, of course. But Dean quit his job and lived with me so I could stay at the house, and he was – I don’t know what I’d have done without him. And then Cas showed up again, with kind of the same message – Eileen was in Heaven and happy, and we’d see each other again someday. So maybe that’s why you haven’t seen him.” Sam chuckled. “He’s been spending all his time zooming back and forth seeing me.”

“And putting Heaven back together so human souls can do more than re-live their favorite memories. Bobby said Cas helped Jack with that.”

“It’s amazing. Not to feel any fear, not to feel – insufficient. Like you could do anything. Do you ever get used to it?”

“I feel like I just got here,” Dean repeated. “But I – Do you have any kind of feeling like there’s something you forgot to do?”

“No. I feel like there’s a lot of things I want to do.”

“No, this is different. I don’t know, maybe I should ask Bobby about that too.”

The road began a curve around a stand of trees, disappearing on the other side.

“What did you do in an office?”

“Well, the last thing I was working on was slipstream ionization technology.” And at Dean’s expression, “It was after your time.”

“Man. Do you have the internet implanted in your brain or something?”

“No, nothing like that.” He looked up and around at the sun flashing between the leaves. “This almost feels like a good memory.”

“I never let the Impala run out of gas.”

Sam laughed. “No, you know what I mean. Some of those days when there wasn’t a hunt and the weather was perfect and we’d hit a McDonald’s or something and just sit on the car, eating and not saying anything, just enjoying the day.”

“And then that night I’d kick your ass playing pool.”

“Oh. Well. I guess now you get good memories in Heaven of stuff that never actually happened.”

Dean grinned, and as they rounded the curve, he saw the roadhouse about a quarter of a mile away. “OK, I drove for forty years but I walked back in five – ”

And he was talking to air, because Sam was running down the road at top speed.

Once Sam got those long legs going, almost no one could outrun him, but the slender woman with flying dark hair running toward Sam was doing her level best. As they met she leaped and Sam caught her, holding her so close they seemed like one being, and they stayed that way for the time that it took Dean to saunter down to them. They were whispering, and he didn’t want to rush their reunion.

Damn it. What was he supposed to be doing?

A few seconds after Dean got to them, Sam gave Eileen a final squeeze and set her down. “Hey, Dean. Ah – you remember Eileen.”

“Oh yeah. Good to see you again, Eileen.”

“Good to see you too, Dean. Oh, so good. I’m so happy.”

Dean was a little amused, knowing that her enthusiasm wasn’t exactly about him, but disconcerted at the same time. Eileen was still speaking in the flat, throaty tone of a deaf person who hadn’t heard hearing people speak. Shouldn’t she be able to hear, in Heaven?

The three of them walked back down the road, Sam and Eileen almost aimlessly, using a combination of speech and sign language as they talked about their son and the people Eileen had met. Dean listened with one ear while he pondered where to find a filling station with a gas can in Heaven.

Dean couldn’t see Bobby as they got closer to the roadhouse, but then the door opened and a woman called to them, “Well, move it, boys! The beer’s getting warm!”

“Ellen!” Sam grinned widely and they all picked up the pace, Sam meeting Ellen Harvelle at the door with a huge hug as Eileen said, “You just wanted a hug. The beer never gets warm here.”

Ellen laughed, ushering them inside. “Seein’ right through me again, Eileen?”

“You two know each other?” Dean asked.

“Sam’s wife? Of course we do.”

Bobby beckoned to them from a table where he was sitting. “Six degrees of separation gets down to one or two after you’ve been here awhile. Sit down, everyone. Wait a minute.”

He stood and gave both Sam and Dean a hug. “God, it’s good to see you boys.” Then he beckoned to the table again.

There were drinks waiting for them all – Scotch for Ellen (which she sipped rather than slamming down), beer for the guys and a generous-sized coffee cup for Eileen with whipped cream on top. “What’s that?” Dean asked.

“Irish coffee,” Sam said, delighted even at seeing his wife’s drink again.

“I’ve liked it since I was in my fifties,” Eileen said.

“Where’s Jo?” Dean asked.

“And Karen? Is she around?” Sam added.

“Karen’s just down the road,” Bobby said. “We got a house there. She’s takin’ care of some people. When children get here, they deal with Heaven real well in some ways, but they need some kindness and reassurance. And some souls get here in pretty bad shape. Maimed. Karen’s one of the people who helps them develop until they can start following their own path.”

“And Jo,” Ellen said with a broad grin, “is off with Ash and Meriwether Lewis making a map of Heaven.”

“Lewis-and-Clark Lewis?” Sam said delightedly.

“The very one. I don’t see how they’re gonna do it myself. Heaven’s not a physical place. But they have this idea about something they’re callin’ ‘spiritual charting.’ Can’t wait to see what they come up with.”

“There are a lot of people I want to know about,” Dean said. “And we both want to see Mom and Dad. But there’s a couple of questions that I need to have answered ASAP.”

“Shoot,” Bobby said.

“Why did the Impala run out of gas?”

Bobby laughed. “The Impala ran out of gas?”

Dean was sure there was a time when that laughter would have irritated him a little. Now he grinned. “I know, it seems weird. But that’s why I’m wondering. Isn’t that the kind of thing that shouldn’t happen here?”

Bobby sobered. “It wouldn’t normally happen, no. You’ll find out – you too, Sam – things get weird here sometimes. But you gotta remember, this isn’t life. Weird never means evil. Usually it leads you into something you need to learn. And there’s one upside – ”

Ellen and Eileen joined in like it was a family joke – “You know it won’t kill you!”

The three of them laughed heartily. Sam smiled as if he were just enjoying the sound of their laughter, and Dean said, “What am I supposed to be learning?”

“You’ll find that out as you go along,” Eileen said. “Something about finding the gas you need, or going back to the Impala, or taking care of the car – somewhere in there will be a lesson.”

“Great,” Dean said wryly. “If you’re a good little boy, when you die you’ll go to school.”

“In a way, yes,” Eileen said. “This isn’t all there is to the afterlife. We develop and grow here too. We learn to do different things, follow our dreams. Eventually our souls develop to a point where we don’t need this replica of Earth anymore. We move into a state – I don’t know, closer to eternity – I don’t know exactly what that’s like.” She smiled at Sam, who had a pucker between his eyebrows. “I’m in no hurry to move on, though.”

He ran an arm around her and kissed her temple.

“When you have questions,” Ellen told Dean, indicating Eileen with a small gesture, “this is a good lady to ask. She’s valuable in these parts. She’s got a gift.”

Both Winchesters looked at Eileen. “I just observe things,” she said. “Sometimes I get intuitions about why things happen the way they do here. They usually turn out to be right.”

“Always,” Bobby said.

“Well, but – ” Dean stopped himself and sighed. “OK, I guess Heaven needs someone to be a dick, so they called me up. It just seems to me like if Heaven was going to give Eileen a gift, hearing would’ve been more valuable than intuitions about how things work.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Sam said as if startled.

“That hadn’t occurred to you?”

“Well, no. It’s just – part of Eileen, you know. I loved her so long, it didn’t occur to me to want anything else.”

“I think I could let the deafness go,” Eileen said. “I probably will, someday. But I’ve lived with it as long as I remember, so it’s – the way I’m used to being. Sometimes things do seem strange here, and for a while you want to cling on to familiar aspects of life. And it’s not like communication is a problem.”

“It’s not?” Dean said.

She gave him a demure smile and started signing. “There’s no language barrier here. Without physical bodies, communication isn’t a matter of words and sounds, it’s a matter of energy and intent.”

After an astounded moment, Dean said, “Holy crap, I understood that! Holy crap, I can say ‘Holy crap’ in Heaven!”

“Didn’t you learn ASL before?” Bobby asked.

“I picked up a little from Sam and Eileen, but nothing like that.” With an amused look, he shook his head. “Well, that answers that question.”

“Do you know why I saw Dean before I saw you?” Sam asked Eileen. “Was it because I was with him when he died?”

“I don’t think so. I think that, when you arrive in Heaven, you’re greeted by the person who needs to see you most.”

Sam smiled. Bobby said, “Weren’t you two married for thirty-something years?”

“Yeah, but she’s pretty independent,” Sam said with a grin. “We loved each other more than I can say. But I knew that if anything ever happened to me – I mean, she’d grieve for me, of course, but she’d carry on. She wouldn’t be shattered. Whereas, well.”

Sam stopped suddenly and took a drink of beer.

Dean got the implication, but wasn’t insulted. (It was very relaxing, he was discovering, not to have your ego on guard all the time.) So he just asked, with no hostility, “Are you saying I’m needy?”

“You need something, Dean,” Eileen said softly. She reached over and touched his chest lightly with her fingertips. “There’s an emptiness here. I don’t think it’s a need for Sam, or any individual. I first noticed it when we were walking over here, and you’d been reunited with Sam for a while then. I think it’s something about yourself – something you need to discover or admit or learn.” She looked apologetic. “That’s the best I can do.”

“Huh. Maybe that’s why I keep having the feeling that there’s something I need to do.”

“We all have things we need to do when we get here,” Bobby said.

“Who greeted you when you got here?” Sam asked Eileen. “Lillian?”

“No, actually, it was me.”

A male, British-accented voice from the door. Sam looked over, then shot to his feet, angling his body between Eileen and the newcomer. It was the first sign of fear or hostility Dean had seen since he’d got here, and Ellen’s and Bobby’s expressions showed surprise too. Dean pushed his chair a little away from the table, just in case things got interesting.

“Ketch.” Sam’s voice was level, but dead serious. “What the Hell are you doing here?”

“Believe me, Sam, you couldn’t be more surprised than I was.” Ketch took a step or two toward them. His shoulders were hunched as though he were ill or in pain, and his skin was grayish. “As it turns out, there were biographical reasons – mitigating circumstances – that kept me off of an express train to Hell.”

Sam lifted his hand a few inches. Ketch stopped walking. “But there is penance to be paid. I can’t be fully at home in Heaven – I can’t rest or progress – until I’ve atoned to all those I’ve harmed.” The corners of his bluish lips lifted. “As you may imagine, I won’t be finished with that for quite some time.”

“That was why he needed most to see me,” Eileen told Sam. “He needed to atone to me for setting the hellhound on me. He needed my forgiveness.”

“And you gave it to him?”

“Yes.”

Sam looked at her, his face grave, then swung his gaze back to Ketch.

“The best way I can describe it,” Eileen said, “is that there’s a deep, painful, freezing cold in him. The forgiveness of other people gives him warmth. But to atone he has to give up almost all of the warmth he’s earned to the person who forgives him. He gets just a little of it back. Eventually, when he’s atoned to everyone he’s harmed, he will have built up enough warmth to exist in Heaven, and he can start developing as a soul.”

“So that’s it?” Dean asked Eileen. “All the crap he pulled and he gets off just by saying, ‘Gee, I’m sorry’?”

“There’s a bit more to the atonement rite than that,” Ketch told him. “And I help others with their projects. That’s a source of warmth, too. But forgiveness is best – which is why, if you’ll allow me, I want to atone to both of you.”

“There are a lot of other people you need to atone to before us,” Dean said, and Sam gave a minuscule nod. “Starting with our mother.”

“I’ve atoned to Mary,” Ketch said. “You know what a great soul she is. She forgave me.”

Dean raised his eyebrows. Sam looked away for a moment, shook his head a little. Ellen exchanged a look with Eileen, as Bobby watched Dean.

“Well, OK,” Dean said, and stood. “If Mom can do it, I can too. How do we do the rite?”

“Seriously, Dean?” Sam snapped.

Dean looked over at him with a little wry smile. “There but for the grace of God, Sammy. If it hadn’t been for Dad and you, I might – and Cas – I might’ve wound up like him.”

“No. You wouldn’t have.”

“Well – Anyway, I know I’m gonna have some atoning to do. I might as well know how to do it.”

“You can’t know how much it means, Dean,” Ketch said, moving around the table to stand in front of him. “Just extend your arms.”

Dean did so, at the level of his chest. Ketch crossed his own arms, extending them and taking hold of Dean’s hands. “Dean, I’ve deeply harmed you, your mother, your brother, and your friends. I’ve been deceitful, treacherous, torturing, and murderous. Can you forgive me?”

Put like that, it was pretty hard, but after a moment Dean nodded. “Yes. I can.”

A fire started over Ketch’s crossed elbows, in front of his chest. Dean jerked his head back, but didn’t break out of the double grip. The fire was the same quiet red color that had flashed in the air between him and Sam earlier, and it was translucent. He could see Ketch’s face through the flame, and it looked a normal human color.

Then in a flash, like ball lightning, it rolled off of Ketch’s arms over Dean’s arms and into Dean’s chest. As Dean made a surprised sound, another fireball, weaker in color, rolled back out of Dean and disappeared into Ketch.

Ketch dropped Dean’s hands and bent over, resting his hands above his knees, with a small pained moan. With a determined look he straightened his back, breathing in as though it hurt. His eyes were so sunken and his skin so gray that he’d have terrified a living person.

“What the hell, man, you look worse than you did before!”

Ketch gave a broken smile. “I can’t feel most of the warmth you gave me, I can only pass that along. But I retain a little of it, and it’s growing, with the rest of my retained warmth. I’ll be much better eventually. Thank you.” He turned. “Sam, I have enough warmth to atone to you.”

Dean didn’t see how Ketch could do that without breaking in half or something, but it didn’t matter. Sam shook his head. He didn’t even look at Ketch, he looked at Eileen, as he said, “I can’t. I can’t even say I’m sorry not to do it.”

Ketch nodded. “Understandable.” He limped toward the door. “Perhaps later.”

Sam was silent. As Ketch pulled the door open, Dean felt like he ought to say something. “Hey. Uh, hope you – get better.”

“No need for pity, Dean.” That broken blue-lipped smile again. “You understand, my worst day here is better than my best day was in life.”

The door closed. Dean rubbed his chest. “That feels great!”

“As forgiveness does,” Eileen said with a smile.

Sam sat down. He finished his beer in two long swallows, and Eileen rested her head on his arm, as Dean asked her, “Is that what I need to do? About my problem?”

“I don’t think so, Dean. He’s shot all through with cold. You have a smaller spot that’s empty. It’s something different.”

“How do I find out what to do?”

“Just do what you want to do,” Bobby said. “It’ll come to you, somehow.”

“Well. What I want to do right now is see Mom and Dad.”

“Great,” Sam said, and to Eileen, “Want to meet Dad?”

“I’ve already met him, Sam. I like both of your parents a lot. But I think you four should have your own family reunion. We’ll have plenty of time to be together as a group.”

Sam hesitated, nodded. “Maybe so.”

He stood, leaned over and kissed her. “I won’t be long.”

She caressed his face. “I’ll be right here.”

The brothers made their way to the lane Bobby had indicated and walked it, slowly passing colorful carved totem poles along the way.

“Should I feel worse about not forgiving Ketch?” Sam asked. “I mean, it is Heaven, after all.”

Dean shrugged. “If you can’t, you can’t. Probably be worse to fake forgiving him than to be honest about it.”

Sam nodded. “But Eileen forgave him. And Mom. After what he did.”

“So it’s a big shock to you that Eileen and Mom are better people than we are?”

Sam laughed quietly. “Better than me, anyway.”

“Well, keep in mind, I’m the one with a hole in my chest. I’m not even sure I want to know – ”

“What that means?”

“Exactly. I only hope – Look.”

Sam’s gaze followed Dean’s hand, which pointed in the direction of an oak log cabin with a chimney whose limestone blocks ranged from ivory to deep brown. Dean clearly wasn’t pointing at the cabin, though. It was the turquoise-and-white 1965 Chevelle Malibu parked out front that had mesmerized Dean. He went to it as directly as a fireman sliding down a pole, and took in every inch of the car with a foolish grin. 

“Do you suppose it’s Dad’s?” Sam spoke quietly, as befitted Dean’s reverent attitude.

Dean shook his head. “I think it’s Mom’s. But I think Dad made it for her.”

“Right on both counts.” A basso profundo voice from the cabin’s front door.

Sam, who was closest, made it over to John Winchester in two long strides as John came down the three steps from the cabin door. “Dad!” he said with a grin, and extended a hand, then two, as if he weren’t sure of the right greeting.

John had no hesitation at all. He gave Sam a bear hug and, as Dean reached them, threw out another arm to pull Dean toward him.

Mary Winchester descended two of the front steps and watched the hug, blinking a couple of tears out of her eyes.

“So good to see you boys,” John said a little brokenly. “So good.”

Dean saw Mary over John’s shoulder and went to her. She gave him a kiss on the forehead and put a hand on his shoulder, stepping down to the ground, as Sam and John clapped each other on the back and Sam moved over to Mary. “My little baby boy,” she said with a laugh, hugging him with her head just under his chin.

“Sorry I didn’t come here as soon as I got here,” Dean said.

“Things happen when they happen,” John said.

“‘Things happen when they happen?’” Sam said, laughing. “When did you get so fatalistic?”

“Relaxed, son, relaxed. Nothing to fear here. Things just – work out right.”

“It took him a while to learn that,” Mary said. “But we knew we’d see you both again.”

“And Castiel gave us updates occasionally,” John said.

“You’ve seen Cas?” Dean exploded. “Has everyone in Heaven but me – ” And then he remembered, again, what Cas had said the last time they were together, and after a moment he made a small gesture. “Well. I’ll see him eventually, no rush.”

“Mom introduced you to Cas, I assume,” Sam said.

“Yeah. It was nice to have an angel’s point of view after things got so confusing in Heaven.”

“Did Cas fill you in about that? Since we were, you know, responsible for the confusion?”

“Not all of it, according to him. After you boys sprang me from Hell, all of a sudden I was walking up the drive of our house in Lawrence. I had the best days of my life there, when Mary and I were newlyweds, and after you boys were born. I don’t know how long things were like that – barbecues with the neighbors, playing with you little guys. Now I’m starting to wonder if we were all just living the same few incidents over and over again. But it didn’t seem like that.”

“No hint that the angels were having a civil war?” Dean asked.

“There was this period when we would see angels streaking across the sky, or flying into the forest like they were hiding from something. Everyone thought it was some kind of major religious event.”

“And then one day,” Mary continued, “there was a brilliant flash all over – indoors, outdoors, in the sky – and all of a sudden it was so quiet. There had always been a sort of background – hum, or music, I don’t know how to describe it. We weren’t even aware of it until it went silent. And you boys disappeared, and John and I – all the souls in Heaven – suddenly realized we were just living in memories, that we were all dead and in Heaven, and there was a rumor that there weren’t any more angels.”

“They fell out of Heaven,” Sam explained. “At least we didn’t do that particular screw-up.”

“And then Mary disappeared,” John said.

“Oh. Yeah,” Dean said. “Sorry.”

Mary laughed. “It wasn’t your fault that I was brought back to life, Dean. And – once I got used to it – I was so glad to get time with you boys as adults.”

“Oh, yeah, great time,” Sam said with deepest rue. “First Ketch. Then you got killed again.”

“That was when Cas started dropping in, letting us know how you were. And I’m fine now,” Mary said. “More than fine. Come on in, I’d like you to see the cabin.”

Dean touched John’s arm as they trooped up the steps. “So how much of Heaven did you tear up looking for Mom?”

“Well, it was still Heaven. It never occurred to me that she might be alive on Earth, so I was sure she wasn’t in any physical danger. I thought she’d been called for some project. But until she got back, I did search pretty – vigorously.”

Dean laughed as they stepped into a large warm room with big windows. Comfortable furniture upholstered in quiet blues and greens filled a room with the limestone fireplace at one end.

Over the fireplace hung a painting of a city that never existed. Painted from a point of view high above a street, it had the misty look of an Impressionist work, but a different color palette: blue-gray, eggshell, brown, coral. The structures along the street included an Aztec pyramid, a brownstone mansion, street markets with bright-colored canopies, a small but exquisite Italianate villa, and a futuristic glass tower.

“This is great,” Sam said, approaching it to study it more closely.

“It’s the city,” Mary said. “Well, one of them.”

“Here in Heaven?”

“Isn’t it wonderful?”

“And your mother wouldn’t brag, but she painted that,” John said.

Dean stared at her. “Wow!”

“Painting is my most recent project,” she said, smiling.

“We saw Ketch, and he said something about helping people with projects,” Dean said. “Do you all of a sudden get brilliant at things when you get into Heaven?”

“Sort of,” Mary replied. “There are things you always thought you might do, or at least look into, when you were alive. But you didn’t have the time or the money, or you were afraid that people would laugh at you or dislike you, or you thought you just weren’t talented enough. But here, you have plenty of time, money’s not a factor, and you don’t tie yourself up the way you did when you were alive. You can explore anything.”

Sam, wide-eyed, said, “Where am I even going to start?”

“Did you let Ketch atone to you?” Mary asked the question of both her sons, and after a moment Dean said, “Yeah. Not that it was easy. But he told us that you forgave him, so that made it easier.”

John chuckled and sat down in a large green easy chair. Mary smiled at Dean. “You don’t have to protect Sam anymore, you know, Dean. Sam?”

“I couldn’t,” Sam said. “I wouldn’t. He let you be tortured. And he killed the woman I loved.”

John nodded a little, and Sam continued, “It doesn’t matter that I was able to pull her back from death. He thought she’d be gone forever, and he still did it. So if that makes me not fit for Heaven – ”

Mary gave a sympathetic laugh as John said firmly, “No!”

“Eventually you learn that forgiveness helps you even more than it helps the person you forgive,” Mary said. “But we’re all imperfect souls. We’re all growing and stretching and learning all the time.”

“Eileen said there’s a hole in me,” Dean said plaintively.

John looked baffled. “A hole?”

“Well, an empty space.”

“It’s handy to know Eileen,” Mary said. “She has good insights about what things mean and what you can do about them.”

“And speaking of which,” John said, and rose.

He walked over to Dean, crossed his arms, and extended his hands.

“Oh, are you kidding me?” Dean exclaimed.

“Dean,” his father began in the don’t-cross-me tone to which Dean was so accustomed. But then his voice gentled. “Let me do this for you boys. It’s something I need to do.”

Looking, and feeling, somehow embarrassed, Dean took hold of John’s hands.

“Dean, I let my rage and grief at your mother’s murder destroy your life. I let my fear for you destroy the sense of safety that a child should have. I pulled you into the hunter’s life when you were much too young to make a choice. I robbed you of the home, the education, the career, and the family you should have had. Can you forgive me?”

“I forgave you a long time ago, Dad,” Dean said.

A warm bright flame built over John’s crossed arms and rolled into Dean’s chest, returning an instant later.

“Thanks,” Dean said quietly.

“Oh, son. Thank you.” John turned. “Sam?”

Sam accepted the ritual and forgave his father, with a look of inward thought as the warmth of forgiveness spread through him.

“My turn,” Mary said, standing in front of Sam and beginning to cross her arms.

“Forget it!” Dean roared at the same moment that Sam said, “Not happening, Mom.”

“Boys,” Mary said in that tone that could somehow be even more forceful than John’s, “I wronged you much worse than your father did – especially you, Sam. I made a deal with a demon – ”

“To save Dad’s life,” Dean said. “We know how it went, Mom. If Dad had died, you wouldn’t have married him, you wouldn’t have had us.”

“And yeah, the demon screwed up my life, but I’d rather have a screwed-up life than no life at all,” Sam said. 

“I’ve thought about what I would’ve done – ” Dean began.

There was a flash in the air as the space among the three of them glowed red. Then the glow fled in three separate directions.

“Hey! That happened to us when Sam first got here!” Dean said.

“Thank you, both of you, so much,” Mary said. “That happens where the people involved understand each other so deeply that the full ritual isn’t required. Atonement is offered and accepted without much needing to be said.”

“Good,” Sam said. “Because I want to see more of your paintings.”

And again Dean was remembering Cas, his blissful smile, as “the people involved understand each other so deeply. . .” settled in his mind.

“Dean?” John said.

Dean lifted his head. “Sorry, what?”

“I said, you want to tour the cabin, see your mom’s art?”

“I do,” Dean said, shaking himself mentally. “But believe it or not, what I mostly need right now is a can of gas.”

“Why?”

“The Impala ran out. It’s sitting on a bridge out in that forest somewhere. I was out there when Sam got here, and we had to walk back.”

John and Mary exchanged a glance.

“I know,” Dean said. “Everyone says that means something. I hope it doesn’t mean I have to drill for oil and refine it as a project.”

His parents chuckled. “Well, we’ll take it a step at a time,” John said. “Mary, you give Sam the grand tour. Dean and I will check out back. If there’s supposed to be a full can of gas there, one will be there, and I’ll drive Dean out to the Impala.”

“And we’ll all have something to eat when you get back,” Mary said.

“Sounds good. This way, Dean.”

John and Dean went one way, into a spacious kitchen, while Mary and Sam went the other, down a hallway.

John opened the back door. It led to a big clearing in the forest, where dusk was just falling. Mesmerized, Dean walked down the back steps. Four beautiful classic cars, and one obviously in the midst of being restored, sat in two rows, with enough cleared ground in front and in back of them for any of them to be driven away.

Completely forgetting why he was supposed to be there, Dean walked the drive between them, looking back and forth, then finally looked back at his grinning father, who was leaning on the steps’ railing. “Well, I know what your project has been. Where did you – How – ”

“I just found the first one, a rusted-out ’69 Camaro. I figured, well, someone’s going to want it back, but maybe I’ll just do a little work on it until I find ’em, I don’t think they’ll mind. I got a little carried away – ”

Dean laughed, looking for the Camaro.

“And then, right after I found a guy who’d let me use his painting equipment, I was having a beer over at the Roadhouse one night with someone I’d just met, he got here in 2010. We were talking about cars, and the guy said he’d always wanted a 1969 Camaro. So I realized, that wasn’t someone else’s car. I was supposed to have that car and fix it up so I could give it to him.”

Dean said with a big smile, “No money in Heaven.”

“No money. But there’s payment. When the guy saw the car and I told him it was his, his happiness was – I felt like I’d just had a great meal and eight hours’ sleep. So I’ve been doin’ that ever since. Some of ’em I give away, some of ’em I trade for something Mary wants or I want. Well, look there.”

There was a large tool shed at one side of the parking lot, and a bright red gas can was sitting on the ground by the door. Dean moved over to it fast and picked it up. It was heavy and sloshed a little.

“All right,” John said. “Which car do you want to take out there?”

“Where to begin? – The Mustang convertible.”

“Good choice.”

John got in the driver’s seat, Dean balanced the gas can on his lap as he settled into the passenger seat. As John turned the key already in the ignition, Dean anticipated the roar of the engine.

Instead, there was the futile sound of an engine with no fuel.

Dean settled back in the seat, with a sigh. “OK. We need to put this in the Mustang.”

“No, it’s got a full tank. I always make sure of that.” They exchanged a look. “Maybe another car.”

“Yeah, I think we know how that’s going to turn out,” Dean said.

And sure enough, the 1974 Firebird TransAm wouldn’t start either.

“All right,” Dean said as he got out of the car. “I’m goin’ on a hike.”

“Let me tell your mother – ”

“Go on back inside, Dad. I think this is something I’m supposed to be doing by myself.”

John nodded. Dean looked into the rapidly darkening forest. “Don’t wait dinner for me.”

“Good luck, son.”

How many times had he done this, walking into a forest where night was falling, wondering what came next? Not usually with a nice smooth road like this, and almost never alone.

But of course the real difference this time was that every nerve wasn’t on edge. He wasn’t even sure he could be on edge if he wanted to be. Quiet, cool darkness. An occasional owl hooting. And the calm certainty, to his very core, that there were no monsters.

In fact, there was a light up ahead, and as he drew closer, a muffled sound of people talking.

There was a smell of bacon frying near the building, bright lights inside, classic pop on speakers – a family restaurant of some kind, not a bar. He knew this place hadn’t been on the road when he’d driven out here earlier, or when he and Sam had walked back. But hey, it was Heaven. Maybe a pop-up way station for the weary traveler with a gas can.

Dean pushed the door open and walked in. The place was full; there were six or seven people waiting for tables, sitting on frayed vinyl-upholstered benches or standing. A cashier rang up a family’s ticket – 

Rang up? What happened to no money in Heaven?

“Name?” the hostess said to someone waiting.

“Hunter. There’s three of us,” said a bass voice that made him jump. It was John Winchester, a John Winchester about 15 years younger than he was in Heaven, talking to a hostess. He pointed to the shorter of the two young boys with him. “And don’t offer this one a booster seat. He gets insulted.”

The hostess smiled. “Understood. It’ll be about ten minutes, is that all right?”

“Sure.”

“Oh man, I’m starving,” Dean Winchester, about ten years old, complained.

“You are not either. You have to be hungry a lot longer before you starve,” Sam informed him in a piping voice.

They obviously couldn’t see or hear him, and Dean chuckled. He’d forgotten how insulted Sammy used to get when they offered him a booster seat, “like I’m a little kid!” For two years he ate most of his diner meals standing up on the seat.

He studied the three, John planted solidly and still, himself fidgeting, Sam absorbed in some little handheld game with bright-colored beads rolling around plastic posts. It seemed random to have walked into this memory. If Heaven wanted to teach him some kind of lesson, OK, but this was like fully one-fifth of the dinners he’d eaten in childhood. They were going to have to get more specific.

The door opened next to him, and he stepped aside, although the couple walking in didn’t see him either. And they were clearly a couple, even though they were both young men – one had his arm around the other’s waist, and they were laughing quietly at some private joke. One of the guys was wearing jeans, a white shirt, and an unconstructed vest; the other wore skin-tight pants and a lavender T-shirt.

“Name.” The hostess was polite, but her voice was flat.

“Sullivan. Two,” the vest-wearer said.

“About half an hour,” she said, turned and left.

Both Deans were riveted by John’s expression. It was stone cold, and his eyes were sharp, slightly narrowed. If a couple of demons in human guise had just walked in, that’s the look John would have had.

Then he bent and grabbed Sam’s hand, knocking the game out of it, and gave Dean what Dean would later call the “second-in-command look,” jerking his head toward the door. “We’re leaving.”

“Why? My game!” Sam wailed. “I want my game!”

Dean scooped it up as he followed his father and Sam out the door. “I got it, Sammy. I got your game.”

Adult Dean stood still for a moment, watching the door shut behind them.

He still didn’t remember this exact moment. But he knew this feeling. The inner chill, the twist in the stomach. He’d had it, when he saw overtly gay men, until he was an older teenager (and to be honest, for some time thereafter). He’d always wondered why he felt dread, not just contempt.

He’d known a few guys toward whom he’d felt real warmth, slight stirrings of excitement. The cold twist in his gut made him steer clear of them. It seemed like he’d always felt that way. Now he was sure: This was the first time, the origin of that dread.

He left the place and saw John putting Sam in the back of the Impala (no child seat or seatbelts; Dean marveled for a moment that they hadn’t all been killed). Ten-year-old Dean barely got Sam’s game back in his hand before their father closed the car door decisively.

Young Dean was staring at his father with huge eyes, but his voice was quiet. “Are they monsters?”

John obviously quelled his first response. “They’re human. But they might as well be.” He crouched, bringing his face level with Dean’s, to bring the point home. “You ever see guys like that, acting like that with other guys, seeming like girls, you get away from them. And you keep Sam away from them, too. He’s just the type they like.”

His tone brooked no questions, and Dean asked none. Standing stock-still, he just nodded. John clapped him on the shoulder and waited for Dean to scramble into the back seat on the other side of the car before he jumped into the driver’s seat and started the car with a roar.

Dean literally face-palmed.

“Ah, Dad,” he mumbled, shaking his head with a rueful smile. No explanation, no information, just a terrifying sense that men who acted effeminate would make your baby brother disappear forever. No wonder he’d been freaked out for years – long after he’d forgotten the incident itself.

At least this wasn’t John’s error alone. There were a lot of men John’s age who believed that gay man equaled child rapist.

He looked at the Impala heading down the road. Its solid black and chrome and red taillights vanished as gray and pink wisps, and the restaurant was gone too.

He spent a moment wondering about the gay couple, their less-than-friendly reception from the hostess, a guy rushing his kids away the moment they walked in the door. That kind of crap had probably gone on with them until – when? The millennium? Maybe later?

He was kind of proud of himself that, within five or six years, he’d worked out for himself how wrong his father was, and acted normally around gay men. (Even though for years he had to fight the cold knot in his stomach around them.)

There were rustling and cries of pain in the trees nearby, a thud and inhuman laughter. The only weapon Dean had was the damn gas can, so he gripped it as he ran toward the sounds.

Then he froze. John Winchester lay at the base of a big tree, his eyes open, gasping in pain. He was reaching for a machete, but could barely move. Two decapitated vampires lay nearby. But a third was still laughing as it pulled John from the base of the tree and knelt on his chest, forcing John’s head back with the heel of its hand, exposing John’s throat.

Dean remembered every moment of this memory. He’d taken a bad hit himself before John had killed the vampire who’d slammed Dean to the ground, and the only “living” vampire obviously thought Dean was down for the count.

He was wrong. Fifteen-year-old Dean, with a roar of pain and rage, bore down on the vampire and swung his machete at its head. It caught the vampire across the chin, severing half of the jaw. With bone hanging off of its face, the vampire shrieked and leaped up, lunging at Dean. Dean jumped back, stumbled as he swung the machete again, severing the vampire’s outstretched hand and slashing it across the face, feeling droplets of the splattered eye on his fingers.

With its face hacked open and one hand gone, the vampire somehow made another lunge at Dean – and fell. John, still on the ground, had both hands around the vampire’s ankle, and Dean took full advantage, swinging the machete straight down on the vampire’s neck. The head slapped to one side, exposing the not-fully-severed vertebrae, and Dean gave a ferocious grunt as he swung down hard, taking the head completely off.

Slowly, John stood. He gasped in pain, then started to say something. But Dean turned sharply away from him and threw up.

John, straightening with a swallowed groan, waited until Dean was done, then limped over to him and put a hand on his back.

“Sorry,” Dean said, wiping his mouth.

“For what? You saved my life. You saved the lives of all the other people that thing would’ve killed. So what’re you sorry for?”

Dean gave him a lopsided smile. “Nothin’.”

“Damn right, nothin’. Pretty messy, you need to work on upper body strength. But good job.” John bent his back a bit and made another sound of pain, with a wave at the corpses. “We’ve gotta have a bonfire, and I think I broke a couple of ribs. I’m not going to be much help dragging these.”

“I can do it,” Dean said, and grabbed one of the creatures by its feet to start making a pile as John limped over to the supplies bag for gasoline and lighters. He bent behind a bush to get them, Dean went behind a tree to collect a head, and the vampire corpses vanished.

After a moment, Dean moved back to the road.

That had been his first kill. Of course, when it came to vampires, the word “kill” was pretty redundant. But still, the first time he’d used violence to finish an evil thing.

He’d been so determined, when they went out that night, that this time he’d do more than harry and split up the creatures so his dad could do the kills. He’d been nervous, but looking forward to higher status – in the hunting community, in his father’s eyes, in his own mind.

Afterward, he was glad he’d done it. But it didn’t give him any big rush of glee. Not then. He’d done a disgusting job that had to be done. And he knew that something had changed in him.

There was light up ahead on the road, and at first he thought it was another diner, but within a few steps it became more diffuse and brighter. He was walking into daylight.

A clearing on the side of the road sloped up, a smooth green hill, where 16-year-old Dean finished a chocolate shake with a loud rattle at the bottom of the cup and lay back, patting his stomach, with a satisfied “Aaah.” A splotch of ketchup remained on the back of his hand. His classmate Seth, sitting beside him, chuckled a little as he smashed the fast-food wrappers and cups into a bag.

“Not big excitement,” Seth said.

“Nah, this is great. Nice bright day, warm sun, good food – I’m a happy man. Excitement’s overrated.”

“I really wanted to go into town. But my dad freaked out completely because of the Gay Pride Parade. I thought about just going anyway, but, y’know, the hell with it.”

“That generation.” Dean shook his head in amused superiority. “My dad’s the same way. I mean, come on. It’s almost the twenty-first century. Catch. Up.”

Seth leaned forward a little and asked quietly, “So you really think – that kind of thing is – OK?”

Dean remembered everything about this moment. The sudden knowledge that he could just reach out to touch and be touched, kiss and be kissed. The rush of excitement to his groin and warmth to his chest.

And the cold twist in his gut.

Sixteen-year-old Dean sat bolt upright, with a big grin. “Well, sure, for those guys. I don’t get it myself. Boobs are too great.”

“Gotta love the boobs,” Seth said.

“I’m gonna walk off that lunch,” Dean said, standing.

“Hey, you were the one who wanted the super-size.”

The two walked briskly into the forest, and it was night again.

So does that mean I’ve been gay all along? he wondered.

Normally, just posing the question to himself would have sent him screaming to the latest issue of Busty Asian Beauties. But the lack of fear in Heaven extended to everything, he guessed, even thinking about your own sexuality.

The thing is, women did turn him on. That wasn’t just play-acting. The curves, the softness. A knowing smile. An innocent giggle at a dumb joke. Muscles gripping and pulling while a soprano voice made out-of-control sounds.

But honestly, sometimes men had had that effect on him too. A victorious athlete, sweaty and grinning. A fellow hunter who’d admitted, away from everyone else, that sometimes he just wanted to ignore everyone else’s horror, buy some land, work with his hands. (The sudden fantasy of lying on a clean soft bed in a quiet country home, being caressed by calloused hands.) An angel, kind enough to retrieve a distraught child’s teddy bear, murmuring to Dean about how much Dean had taught him.

Well, that was the last thing he needed to think about.

Or maybe it was the exact thing he was supposed to think about.

What were people talking about when they said “gay,” anyway? Or “straight,” for that matter? Just the sexual stuff? Or the emotional stuff that made you back away and run?

He had loved Cassie, he knew that. The sex had been great. And he’d loved her so much he’d broken the Fight Club rule by telling her about the hunter’s life. But now that he was thinking about it, he remembered guys that he’d started to have feelings for – not just the sex stuff, the emotional stuff – and he blocked them immediately. He remembered the feelings, yes he did – and then he’d block them again.

And of course Cassie had been a disaster. Of course she thought he was telling her this unbelievable story about being a nomadic monster-hunter just because he wanted to dump her and leave town. At the time, it hurt like hell, because he thought she’d loved him enough to believe him and trust him. Later, he had to admit that he could see her point.

And after that, he’d blocked any more serious feelings about anyone, male or female. Sure, one-night stands with girls who understood about the fun of one-night stands. But love, love with anyone, was just – impossible. Or inconvenient. Or scary. Or something.

There was a bright light overhead. He looked up, blinking, at a tall parking-lot light, and when he looked back, a long one-story motel stretched across the road, one door right in front of him.

Frankly, he’d had enough of Memory Lane for one night. But he had the feeling that if he just tried to walk around the motel, whatever was behind that door would pursue him.

He shook his head, took a breath, and opened the door.

There were only two chairs for the small table in the motel room, so the table was pulled over to a bed where 17-year-old Dean sat reading a newspaper. John sat in one of the chairs, putting fried chicken from a bucket onto paper plates. But he stopped, startled, when Dean slammed the newspaper on the bed.

“One of your investments didn’t pan out?” John asked.

Dean gave a half-smile. “No, it – A guy I knew, back in Wichita – you remember Seth? Killed himself.”

John put some chicken on the plate in front of the second chair, watching Dean.

“So glad I’m not doing the school thing anymore,” Dean said roughly. “Everyone there is screwed up. And you want to help, you know, but you can’t help the whole school.”

He sent an angry look at the wall, one fist clenching –

And was there more ketchup on his hand? What the hell, had he gone around for a year with – 

Then he saw it for what it was. Seventeen-year-old Dean, sitting there with the back of one hand almost covered in dried blood. And neither he nor his dad noticed.

“People shouldn’t do that,” John said. “It’s a selfish thing. Big play for pity. Everyone has times when – times when they feel like everything’s shot out from under them, maybe take the easy way out. But they’ve got people depending on ’em – friends, relatives, someone. They just think their misery is more important than their other responsibilities.”

Dean nodded. John opened a tub of mashed potatoes and another of green beans.

“You got a hunt?” Dean asked.

“Maybe something in Valentine, Nebraska. Hard to tell. Could be a werewolf, could be just some sicko the police can take care of.”

“I wouldn’t mind a hunt.”

“Me either,” John said. He rose and walked right by adult Dean, opening the hotel door and shouting, “Sam! Dinner!”

Thirteen-year-old Sam didn’t need to be told twice. Dean remembered him clearly, as the kid bolted through the door – a nonstop metabolic engine that burned off every extra pound he’d ever put on and made him seem taller every time you turned around.

“Can I have another piece of chicken?” he asked, settling into the empty chair.

“Sure, as soon as you eat those two. And the vegetables.”

“Where’s the butter?”

“I’ll get it,” Dean said, pulling his legs out from under the table and spinning around on the bed. The miniature refrigerator held packets of butter, jelly, salt, and salsa they’d collected from various restaurants, a liter of soda pop, and five cans of beer.

“We’re headin’ on up to Valentine tomorrow,” John told Sam. “Werewolf up there.”

Sam dropped a chicken breast back on his plate with a soft thud. “We just got here!”

“And now we’re moving on. It’s summer, you’re not in school now, what’s the problem?”

“I have friends here!”

“You’ll make friends in Valentine,” Dean said, scooching back under the table and dropping packets of butter and a plastic knife in front of Sam. “You’re good at that.”

“Well, what’s even the point? I never get to see any of ’em!”

“Stop whining, Sam,” John said brusquely.

“I’m not whining. I’m mad. I was gonna go to the outdoor concert with Krista tomorrow. I made a date.”

“Oh, well, you made a date,” John said. “That changes everything. Sorry about the werewolf ripping your mothers’ hearts out, folks – we can’t get up there because Sam has a date.”

Sam let out a frustrated, angry breath. Then he looked at Dean pleadingly.

“It sucks, but it’s gotta be done,” Dean said.

Sam bit his lips, staring down at his plate. Dean took a bite of mashed potatoes, and John had a swallow of beer.

“Someday I won’t be a minor anymore,” Sam said in a low tone.

“And by that time, you’ll see I’m right,” John said. “Until then, you’ll do what I say. Eat your dinner.”

And Sam did. They all did, in silence. Young Dean glanced at the top of Sam’s head, then over at the wall again.

And what the hell – 

Adult Dean had been standing to one side of the door, seeing glimpses of his own younger face around Sam’s head. Now, stunned, he moved slowly to get the full view of his own face.

Suddenly, 17-year-old Dean was covered with scales. Hundreds of lizard-like small shields moving with his jaw as he chewed, with his throat as he swallowed. Scales down his arms and under the blood on his hands.

Nobody noticed.

Adult Dean closed his eyes and turned his head, and when he opened his eyes, the motel was gone.

“I know what comes next,” he whispered.

A werewolf ran out of the trees, starting across the road in front of Dean, when a shotgun rang out and the monster fell, bleeding from one leg.

It tried to stand as best it could, but 17-year-old Dean was running just a few yards behind it. He shot the second barrel into the creature’s other leg, then gave it a rising kick under the shoulder, flipping it face-up. Dean slammed the gun down onto the creature’s mouth, forcing a corner of the stock between its jaws, feeling teeth and fangs crunch as he said, “Still wanna bite my dad? Still wanna do that?”

The creature roared, slashing at the shotgun with its clawed hands. Dean pulled a silver-bladed knife from the sheath on his belt. Keeping his left hand on the shotgun, he dropped down, stabbed the werewolf in the gut, and twisted the knife.

The creature’s roar went very soft, high-pitched. Dean pulled the knife out and stabbed the thing again, between the ribs, feeling wetness on his shirt. The werewolf’s arms flopped to the ground and it went completely still.

“Tryin’ to fake me out?” Dean said between his teeth, pulled the knife out and plunged it into the werewolf’s throat.

John Winchester had caught up and was watching. Dean leaped to his feet. “Woo! That son of a bitch died hard!”

John was quiet for a moment. Adult Dean remembered wondering if John had been bitten and Dean hadn’t seen. His father looked suddenly old.

Then John said, “Werewolves do. You got a change of clothes in the truck?”

“Sure I do.”

“I’ll take care of this. You use some of the towels, clean up, change your clothes. Then I’ll buy you a real drink.”

Dean flashed a smile. “Won’t be the first time I’ve had the good stuff, you know.”

“I know. But it’ll be the first time I bought it for you.”

“True,” Dean said. He bent to pull the knife out of the werewolf’s throat – 

His hands had claws.

Younger Dean didn’t see that. He shoved the gory knife back in its sheath, slapped John on the shoulder with a clawed hand as though John were just a fellow hunter, not his father, and headed back into the forest. John followed, dragging the werewolf off the road.

“I needed it,” Dean whispered.

He hadn’t really admitted it to himself at the time. He sure hadn’t admitted it earlier, when he told Sam the job had to be done. Sure, it did, but that wasn’t the reason why he couldn’t wait to go on a hunt. He needed the outlet, the channel for his rage. He needed the violence.

And maybe that was what John Winchester had seen, that made him go so quiet. He must have realized – just then! – that his son had turned into a monster. Even if he couldn’t see the scales and claws, he knew.

And Dean himself knew, of course. All the things he couldn’t do, the feelings he wouldn’t let himself feel, the people he couldn’t save – it all went away when he fought, when he shot or stabbed or beheaded something evil, leaving only exhaustion and temporary peace.

“But what the hell does that have to do – ”

He said it aloud, looked around like someone was going to hear him talking to himself out here, and trudged down the road. 

What the hell did his – OK, be honest – need for violence have to do with the whole Seth thing? The whole OK-maybe-I’m-bisexual thing?

“Seriously, Jack.” This time he spoke aloud deliberately. “You know me. I’m not big on subtlety. Just appear in a big halo of light and explain it.”

The instant the words left his mouth, he chuckled. Because Jack did know him, probably better than he knew himself. And both of them knew damn well that Dean Winchester wouldn’t accept anyone else’s analysis of Dean Winchester. He had to work it out for himself, dragging his mental feet every step of the way.

He heard moving water, and something dark bulked on the road up ahead.

“Oh, come on, Baby,” he muttered, picking up the pace. And sure enough, it was the Impala, waiting patiently on the bridge for him.

He was moving so fast that he tripped on something in the dark, landing on his hands and knees. The gas can clanged and slid across the pavement.

He cursed, but none of it had spilled, and he made it the rest of the way to the car without performing any other acrobatics. He’d never filled a gas tank and started an engine so fast in his life.

He was half-worried that he’d drive into some other memory, but no. The road slid by easily. He made a left turn at the clearing of Harvelle’s Roadhouse and drove the lane past the totem poles, pulling up to park behind the turquoise-and-white Chevelle.

He sat for a moment in the silent car, pondering.

Eileen had said that he needed to learn something or admit something about himself. Was it that he was inwardly a monster?

Because he’d kind of had that feeling for a long time anyway.

Was it that he couldn’t expect anyone, male or female, to love him as long as he was inwardly a monster? Because he was pretty much aware of that, too.

Maybe he needed to go around atoning to a lot of people. And an angel. Maybe that was the lesson.

He looked at his parents’ cabin, warm light shining through translucent drapes – because here you don’t need to fear anything stalking you, peeping through your windows. He’d only been here once, but it felt like home already. He wondered where he’d wind up staying permanently. Maybe build a place for himself.

Yeah. John and Mary, Sam and Eileen, Bobby and Karen. And Dean.

Anyway. It was probably just as well.

And he could see any of them, anytime. God, he was glad about that. And he should learn how to get along by himself more of the time anyway.

Just as well.

He remembered that Mary had said something about having something to eat when he got back. He was feeling hungry; not the tense sharp hunger when you don’t know when you can eat again, but the anticipatory hunger when you know that a good meal is right at hand. Boy, was he happy that there was food and drink in Heaven.

He jumped out of the car and bounded up the three steps, reaching out to turn the knob on the lock-free door.

His hand was scaled and clawed and stained with red.

He froze, staring in disbelief. Both hands, both arms were the same.

The door opened. “Told you I heard a car stop,” Sam said cheerfully over his shoulder, and to Dean, “Got ’er back in time for dinner, of course.”

“Sam.” Dean almost whispered it.

The smile dropped off Sam’s face and he stepped down, pulling the door most of the way shut. “What’s going on?”

“Do you – do you see me?”

“Yeah. What happened?”

There was good light over the porch. If he could see Sam perfectly well, Sam could see him. “I’ve got a feeling that I look different.”

“You look the same to me. What’s the feeling like?”

Dean didn’t know where to begin.

“You really went through something out there, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. Flashbacks from Memory Lane.”

Sam lifted his head and his gaze for a moment, usually a sign that a serious swear word had flashed through his mind. “Hell?”

Dean breathed a little more easily. “No. Nothing from Hell.”

“Well, look, you want to just sit in the car and talk about it?”

No, he really didn’t. If Sam couldn’t see how monstrous he was, probably no one else could either. Some kind of lingering effect of the memories, maybe.

“Nah. I just need to snap out of it. Food and good company, that’ll do it.”

Sam nodded, a little gravely, but then gave him a smile. “We’ve got both. And a special guest appearance,” he added, opening the door.

“Everything OK?” John asked as they stepped in.

The beautiful oak dining table – Dean wondered who’d done that – was set for six. John and Mary were seated at its ends; John was carving slices of roast beef. Two empty chairs faced away from Sam and Dean.

And in the two chairs facing them were Eileen and Castiel.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” Dean said. “Baby says thanks for the gas.”

Both parents gave a quick look at him, then Sam.

“What was the conclave at the door about?” John asked.

“Your birthday present,” Dean said. “Hey, Cas.”

Cas’ smile was joyous, but his voice was controlled. “It’s good to see you, Dean.”

How was it possible for Cas not to see what Dean was? He was an angel, for Heaven’s sake. He’d seen what Dean had become in Hell. He’d seen what Dean had done since he’d pulled Dean out of Hell. And he was beaming at Dean as though there was nothing to stop him from saying “I love you” again. It was insane.

“Good to see you too.” Dean sat at his father’s right, in time to pass a plate of steaming roast beef slices and peas to Sam. A bowl of mashed potatoes sat in the middle of the table, and a boat of savory-looking gravy. Man, he was hungry. He hoped the claws didn’t interfere with using a knife and fork.

“You guys, this looks great,” Sam said, vigorously dishing mashed potatoes.

“I’m so glad you got back in time to eat, Dean,” Eileen said.

“Yeah, I am, too.” Dean glanced around the table, baffled by normalcy. “So Cas, Bobby says you helped patch Heaven back up again.”

Cas’ and Eileen’s plates were full too, but they were politely waiting for Sam and Dean to be served. “It was very rewarding work,” Cas said. “The interesting thing is how much human souls helped in the process.”

“There you go,” John murmured, putting a plate in front of Dean, as Cas continued, “Once they’re freed from the burden of fear, human souls are capable of astonishing things.”

The food in front of him, and on the table, looked and smelled amazing. Dean started to reach for the gravy boat, then pulled back his bloodstained hand.

“Not that fear isn’t a motivator in life,” Sam said. “I never packed so much research into my head as when we’d be going out on a hunt and I had the feeling our lives might depend on something I was reading that minute.”

“The problem is that fear, as a motivator, can turn on you,” Cas said. “It can cause obsession, or actually work against what you’re trying to accomplish. Nothing is a better motivator for humans than work that gives them joy.”

“And love,” Eileen said.

Cas gave her one of his gentle smiles. “Indeed. Genuine love of any kind.”

“Dig in, Dean,” John said, glancing at Dean’s untouched plate.

“You bet,” Dean said. He didn’t remember ever feeling so hungry.

“Mom says there’s a nice bed and breakfast just down the road,” Sam told Dean. “Eileen and I are going to go there after dinner, and then go to see the city in a day or so. Want to go with us?”

“We do have a guest room,” Mary told Dean. “We’d love to have you stay. Is the dinner all right?”

“Looks great,” Dean said. “I’m just waiting for Sam to pass the mashed potatoes.”

Sam laughed, passing them. “Like you’ve never reached across the table to grab food in your life.”

Dean put two big spoonsful of potatoes on his plate, hoping to God he didn’t drop a scale into the bowl.

Sam, about to take his third bite of roast beef, paused. “It just struck me,” he said, looking at John. “Meat?”

“Self-sacrificing cows,” John said.

Sam blinked. Mary and Eileen burst into laughter.

“It’s not physical,” John said, cracking a smile. “Food can be whatever you want. Makes goin’ to the store real easy.”

“I’ll demonstrate,” Cas said.

He focused on his plate for a moment, and then it was a pie, steaming gently, smelling of fruit and cinnamon.

“I hope everyone likes apple,” he said, looking all around the table but pushing the pie toward Dean.

“Great,” Dean said. He felt like he was going to double over, he was so hungry, but at the same time he hadn’t eaten anything.

“You can change the food into anything you want, I won’t be insulted,” John said. “I just figured you boys would like roast beef.”

“I’m just taking my time,” Dean said, “enjoying the prospect.”

There was a moment while everyone else ate and Dean wondered why he wasn’t. Sure, claws and scales and dried blood will put anyone off their feed, but his hunger was starting to freak him out as much as his appearance. He just couldn’t bring himself to make the effort to eat.

“Carl Sandburg gave a poetry reading recently,” Mary said, “and one of his lines was, ‘We are spirit devouring energy.’ I liked that.”

“It’s true even when we’re alive,” Eileen said. “Our bodies need physical food, but our spirits need energy just as much. Motivation, desire.”

“Love,” Sam said. “Curiosity.”

“Spiritual yearning,” Castiel said.

Dean nodded. He picked up his fork because he might as well pretend to eat, since he had nothing to contribute to the conversation. Another moment passed while Castiel conjured a knife and cut the pie into six slices, Dean toyed with his mashed potatoes, and everyone else ate.

“So – you found the Impala and got it back without any trouble?” Mary asked gently.

“Sure, no problem.”

A moment of silence.

“Things can seem very strange when you first get here,” Eileen said to Dean. “If you had any – ”

“Just let him process,” Sam said. “He’ll be OK.”

“I am OK,” Dean said irritably.

Another pause while everyone ate and Dean desperately tried to pretend that he wasn’t a monster, he was just a guy looking at a great meal.

And suddenly he realized the problem: If he started eating, everyone would realize that he was a monster. If he just sat still, they didn’t see it. Maybe accepting the food would make him even more monstrous. Fangs or something. He couldn’t take the risk.

“Right after your mom got back and things started changing around here,” John said, “I woke up one morning – we can sleep, you know, if we just want to check out for a while – anyway, I was as weak as a kitten. It took everything I had to stand up. I almost didn’t have the wherewithal to envision clothes on me. Imagine how weak you have to be, not to be able to get dressed when all you have to do is think about it.”

“I thought it was probably a – a metaphorical condition. Something John had to learn,” Mary said. “But I couldn’t help but wonder if something evil had somehow come here and attacked him.”

“And I didn’t help the situation by snapping at her and telling her not to baby me. My spirit was so weak I couldn’t even envision food, much less eat it, and I’m telling her not to be a weakling!” John shook his head.

Sam looked at Dean. Dean almost glared back at him, and Sam shifted his gaze to John. “So how did you come back from that?”

“I realized what I was doing. What I’d always done. Being strong has always been important to me. Physically, mentally, emotionally – ” his lips quirked – “you know, tough guy. And there’ve been times and places where that was damn valuable. But sometimes people are just knocked flat. They can’t just give themselves strength. And you yelling at them to be strong isn’t going to make them strong. It’s not helpful. And it’s wrong. I remembered a couple of guys in my command in ’Nam, and I remembered – ” John hesitated, looked them both in the eyes. “I remembered you boys. I’m so proud of the way you turned out. But I could have broken you instead. Sometimes demanding strength won’t change anything. And the moment I realized that, I started getting my strength back.”

After a moment, Sam said, “Thanks, Dad.”

Dean had the feeling that for some reason the whole thing had been told for his benefit. Or to try to get him to talk about what had happened in the forest. In a hostile tone he asked, “So did you develop scales all over you when this was going on?”

John looked startled. “Scales? No. Why?”

“Just thought it’d be a plot twist.” Dean stood suddenly. “I’m gonna – go somewhere.”

“Can’t you even eat one bite?” Mary asked, looking worried.

“Perhaps he should start with dessert,” Cas said with a smile, pushing the pie further toward Dean. “I’ve never known Dean to turn down pie.”

“Damn it, Cas! I don’t want anything! Leave me alone!”

Dean reached the door in a few fast steps, slamming it behind him and going down the front steps so fast that he missed the last one and fell.

He landed on his hands and knees on the road. The gas can clanged and slid across the pavement.

He gasped and rolled over, resting his back on the Impala’s front tire, and held his hands out in front of him. By the light of a full moon he could see that they were normal, unstained, human hands.

He drew two more deep breaths.

The memories had all been of things that really happened. He was sure of that. But what was that last thing?

“The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come,” he mumbled.

This was his future – like Ketch, desperately trying to find a home in Heaven, knowing all the time that he was a monster.

How did no one else see it, in his vision?

How did they not see it when he was alive?

How could a good man like Sam live with a monster, trade confidences with it, laugh with it, care about it?

Why hadn’t his mother, once she’d got to know her grown son, rejected him in horror?

How could an angel – a fallen angel to be sure, but one whose moral compass had often set Dean right – how could that being love a monster?

He sat on the pavement, breathing deeply, listening to the sounds of the night. Crickets. Running chuckling water and crickets, in Heaven.

He thought about that dinner, sitting there terrified to eat, even to be with these people, terrified that they would realize what he was, even as Sam offered to listen to his memories and his monster-killing father said he was proud of Dean and his sister-in-law, who had a gift of insight, smiled at him and tried to ease his fear.

Was it possible that he was the only one who saw the monster, because he was the only one who thought it existed?

“Is that the moral of the story?” he asked Jack. “That I’m not a monster?”

Tears surged into his eyes, and he didn’t fight them. He felt like they were carrying poison out of him as they fell.

If he wasn’t something vile – if he didn’t have to constantly be afraid of that – if he didn’t have to spend all his psychic energy defending against that – 

What couldn’t he do?

What couldn’t he have?

“I deserve to be loved,” he whispered in wonder. “It’s not everyone else who’s been wrong. It’s me. I’m not a monster.”

And he felt it – in his chest, right where Eileen had touched him – the emptiness, yearning, as sharp and obvious as his hunger had been in his vision.

“I want to be loved.” He said it out loud, steadily. “And I deserve to be.”

Then he grinned. “And I hope you were listening, Jack, because that’s the only time I’m gonna say that out loud.”

But he would admit it to himself. Because he could. Because it was true.

He sat there for another moment, then realized that the gas can wasn’t lying in the road anymore. He sat up straighter, looking around, but it had vanished.

It wasn’t needed. The car would start now. He could go on back and have a good meal with his family. And he knew who would be waiting there for him.

He stood and had his hand on the door handle when he heard the whispering rustle of wings behind him. He sucked in a breath and spun.

Castiel’s quiet voice resonated with joy. “Dean! It’s you.”

Dean just stared at him for a moment, then heard himself saying, “Are you real?”

Cas studied Dean’s face. “You’ve had an experience.”

Dean laughed darkly. “Oh, yes. I have had an experience.”

Castiel nodded thoughtfully. “Do you remember that, in life, you had dreams that seemed very real? But when you woke up, you knew the difference between even the most realistic dream and waking reality.”

Dean nodded. “Got it. Yeah. This is reality. Actually, it feels more real than life felt.”

“People sometimes say that.”

“Did Jack send you here?”

“No. At least, not directly. I felt that someone needed help here. Was it a very difficult experience?”

“Yeah. Well, not that bad. Like a slap in the face to make you wake up.”

“A lot of people tell me that, too.”

Dean, not sure how to begin, just nodded.

Then he said, “Sam’s here. He told me how you came by to help him out during some bad times.”

“I sensed his arrival. I sensed yours, too, but I thought you might want to settle into Heaven on your own, without anyone – burdening you with emotional complexity.”

Dean made a face. “I admit to not being good with emotional complexity.”

Cas’ voice was quiet. “I’m sorry that you lost your life.”

“You know, it doesn’t really feel like I did. It feels like I got a chance to start my life all over. And start it over knowing more about what I want. And what I need to do.”

Dean crossed his arms and extended his hands to Cas.

Cas still had the lines around his eyes from the time he was human on Earth. They creased now in a slightly sad smile. “This isn’t necessary.”

“You know it is. Come on, man.”

And when Cas took his hands, Dean said, “Cas – Castiel – I used you. I knew how you felt about me, and I wouldn’t admit it – I was afraid to admit it, because I might have to think about how I felt. But I knew you’d do anything for me and I took advantage – ”

Flame blossomed over Dean’s arms, then leaped out in both directions, and Dean gasped with relief as the emptiness in him filled with warmth.

Cas closed his eyes for a moment as he squeezed Dean’s hands. Then, abruptly, he let go.

“Thank you,” Dean said.

“Not at all. Forgiving you is easy.”

“Well – glad to hear that,” Dean said, then steadied himself. “Not going into details, the lesson I learned from the experience was that maybe I’m not a monster, and maybe someone who loves me isn’t just delusional.”

“I tried so often to let you know that.”

“I know. You had – We had a lot of history working against us. But you never gave up on me, and now I think I could – I mean, if you’re still interested – We could be – ”

“Dean.”

That was all Castiel said, but the note of resonant sadness and finality in his voice stopped Dean cold.

And after a moment he said, “It’s too late. Isn’t it?”

Cas shifted his gaze, thinking, then looked back at Dean. “After Jack pulled me out of the Empty – well, there was a great deal of work to be done, of course, but in the occasional quiet moments I thought about our time together. I don’t regret telling you that I love you, and in a way I always will. But I was asking too much of you. At first I thought that your rejection of me was because you remembered the being that I was when we first met, and then I thought it was simply because I was in a male form.”

“That was a problem. Yeah. But the experience helped me understand – some things about myself.”

“I’m glad.” Cas’ voice was soft. “But I grew to understand something as well. The problem wasn’t simply my form. That alone wouldn’t have caused you to behave toward me as you did in my last months on Earth. You are not a cruel person, Dean. I know that. And, here in Heaven, I realized that the problem was something fundamental, which for some reason I was too slow to grasp. You are a human who spent almost his entire life fearing, hunting, and hating supernatural beings. And I am a supernatural being.”

It staggered Dean. After a moment he began, “I don’t think – I never – ”

Castiel said easily, “Well, maybe you simply weren’t attracted to me. In the more intense moments we had together, I thought perhaps you might be. But, whatever the reason, I finally realized that I simply wanted more from you than you could give, and that it was wrong – it was sinfully wrong – for an angel to make such demands of a mortal being.”

“You never ‘made demands,’ Cas. I was the one who always wanted you around when we needed you, and I tried not to think about why you always were. But,” he stumbled a bit, but the courage Heaven gives allowed him to finish. “but if you’d give me a second chance, I’ll do my best to make it up to you.”

There was a snap in Cas’ voice. “Dean, I am not going to exploit any feelings of loss or disorientation you have after your death for my own benefit.”

“You wouldn’t be! This is all me. This is what I want.”

Cas sighed, shook his head. “I know that Sam is here. That you’ve seen your parents and Bobby Singer. Go back to your family. Be with other human souls, begin a project. If you truly want romantic intimacy, you’ll find a compatible human soul here. It would be a mistake for us to try to force a relationship that you don’t truly want.”

“Look, at least – ”

There was the rustle of wings, and Dean was alone.

He stood still for two minutes. Then he got into the car.

He wondered if he’d drive into another memory, but at the same time he knew he wouldn’t. This was reality, and the reality was, it was too late.

Besides, the memories were there, inside him. They were bombarding him as he pulled up behind the Chevelle.

Himself snarling at Cas, wanting to know why Cas was always the cause of things that went wrong. (And, even at the time, he knew that wasn’t true.)

Turning the humanized Cas out of the only home he had. He had to do it to save Sam, of course. But he had the feeling that if the situation were reversed, Sam would have made arrangements for Cas to stay someplace instead of just telling him that he had to leave.

And, sure, when Cas was taken from them, he’d mourned the angel and wanted him back. He’d always wanted Cas to be around, wanted his comfort and counsel, wanted Cas’ unconditional love.

And as for what Cas wanted?

Well, Dean didn’t think about it. Because Dean didn’t want to think about it.

“Maybe I am a monster,” he mumbled.

Then he shook his head. He wasn’t going to go that route again. In a way, it was too easy. “Hey, what do you expect, I’m a jerk.”

Dean Winchester had the capacity to treat others well. And he hadn’t treated Castiel well. And he’d driven Cas away, once and for all, just before he realized that he wanted Cas as much as Cas had once wanted him.

He stared through the windshield, blankly and bleakly.

You wouldn’t think there’d be heartbreak in Heaven.

But maybe this was one of those lessons his soul had to learn. Like Sam learning how to deal with life without Dean.

Which reminded him that maybe the family was starting to get worried about him. He should at least stick his head in the door, tell them he was back and fine.

In a way he wanted to stay, let their joy buoy him up a little. In a way he had the feeling that he’d suck all the joy right out of the room.

But where else would he go?

“Come on, you can do this,” he mumbled, and extracted himself from the car.

When he reached for the doorknob, he hesitated. Nope, regular human hands.

But then Sam opened the door and called out cheerfully over his shoulder, “Told you I heard a car stop,” and Dean freaked out a little. “Got ’er back in time for dinner, of course,” Sam added.

The memory of the experience, the memory of Cas afterward, paralyzed Dean. All he could do was whisper, “Sam.”

The smile dropped off Sam’s face, and he stepped down, pulling the door most of the way shut. “What’s going on?”

Where to begin? But he knew where. “I saw Cas.”

Sam studied Dean’s expression. “And?”

Dean raised his head, looked square into Sam’s eyes. “I used to treat him like crap, Sam.”

Sam’s hesitation was confirmation, but then he said, “We both took advantage of him, Dean. We were human beings. Hell, we’re still human souls. We weren’t perfect, and we’re not perfect now.”

Dean nodded.

Sam asked dubiously, “Did he say that you treated him like crap?”

“No. He said that he knew I’m not a cruel person.”

“Well, that’s good.” Sam was obviously trying to keep Dean talking, figure out what was going on. “Sounds like he forgave you.”

“Yes. I literally did the atonement thing with him.”

“OK. Good. But – ”

“When Cas – When he sacrificed himself to save me from Death – I didn’t tell you how he summoned the Empty.”

“You said he’d made a deal with it, that he could summon it at any time, like a last-ditch weapon, and it would get him in return.”

“Yeah. Not so much. The deal was that Jack would be saved from the Empty and Cas would go into it. But – you know – ” Dean couldn’t help but smile a little – “You know Cas, he has this habit of really pissing off afterlife entities.”

Just a flick of a smile on Sam’s face. “OK . . . ”

“The deal was that as long as Cas was, was, not real happy on Earth, he could stay there, but that the moment he achieved real happiness, the Empty could come and get him.”

The wheels in Sam’s head were spinning. “So – the world is going to hell in a handcart, you and Cas are barricaded in the Bunker, Death is pounding on the door, and right then somehow Cas achieves real happiness?”

“He told me that he loved me.”

After a moment Sam just said, “Oh,” on a breath of realization.

“That was – it made him happy – overjoyed – just to be able to say – He was smiling when it swallowed Death and, and him.”

Dean’s voice choked to a stop.

After a moment, Sam said, “But you’ve seen him, right? Is he all right? Is there something – ”

“Did you know? How he felt?”

“Well. Yeah. It was pretty obvious.”

“So you must think I’m an idiot for not taking him up on it.”

“Well, no, Dean. I’m not gonna tell people who they should and shouldn’t love.”

Dean smiled wryly. “Maybe you should have.”

“So what happened tonight?”

“I went through some stuff out there. Made me realize some things about myself. I want – ”

Boy, even in Heaven it was hard to say this out loud. He could never have done it in life.

“I want to be loved. And, well, specifically, by Cas.”

Sam looked puzzled. “So then, if he and you both – ” And then the dawn broke. “He turned you down. Because of the past stuff.”

“He’s decided that I spent so much time hating supernatural beings that it would be impossible for me to love one. I guess he figures it’d be like – those other times – We’d get him back, and I’d be so happy and relieved, and then I’d just, I’d just go back to treating him the same way.”

The door opened behind Sam, and John asked, “Everything OK?”

“Yeah,” Sam said quickly. “Just some brother talk. We’ll be in there in a minute.”

John looked at both of them, nodded, closed the door.

“So,” Sam said quietly. “There’s a problem.”

“It’s past ‘a problem,’ Sam. There’s nothing to do.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“I know. But this isn’t fighting something powerful trying to kill us. This isn’t spending months trying to kill something so we can save the world. This is wanting someone to love you. You can’t, you know, do that with an antique weapon. It’s too late.”

Sam started nodding, with a grave look.

Then suddenly he shook his head. “Wait a damn minute. This is Heaven, Dean. We’re here for eternity. You really think ‘too late’ has much meaning here?”

“I think it might have meaning to an angel.”

“Well, maybe. And maybe not. I don’t think you should just give up, Dean. I know it’s not the kind of challenge you’re used to, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be defeating you for all eternity.”

“Well – you might have a point.”

“I mean, maybe now you’ve opened yourself up to the idea of love, maybe Cas changes his mind, or maybe you find someone else as great. If you don’t want to be alone, you’re not going to be, Dean. Not for long.”

“I think maybe I’m supposed to be alone. Teach me something, teach my soul something.”

“Well, maybe. But it won’t be forever. I’m sure of that.”

Something released its clutch on Dean’s ribcage, and he grinned. “Still bein’ the expert on Heaven.”

“Well, I’m getting there,” Sam said determinedly. He opened the door, ushered Dean past him, then turned his face to the starry sky and called, “Cas?”

In a panic scramble, Dean jumped back onto the front porch and reclosed the door. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

“Calling Cas.”

“Sam, damn it, you just said you weren’t going to tell people who they should love! I don’t want you running interference for me!”

“I’m not.”

“What do you mean? You just called Cas!”

Sam took advantage of his extra inches (oh yeah, Dean thought, he had to do that additional-height thing someday) to stare Dean down coolly. “Dean, it’s a family dinner. It’s my first – well, I guess day, in Heaven, and I haven’t seen Cas in a couple of years. Mom and Dad haven’t seen him in a while. Eileen’s joining us, and she wants to talk to him again. You know that not everything is about you, right?”

“Well, well, but – ” Dean was spluttering. “OK, well, OK. But I’m taking off. I’ll see you guys tomorrow. If I’m here right after he turned me down, he’s gonna think I’m stalking him.”

“My powers – ” The deep voice came from behind Dean, and he almost literally jumped – “are fully restored, Dean. You couldn’t stalk me if you wanted to.”

“I, yeah, well – ” Dean gave up trying to say anything complex, different emotions were flooding him at the sight of Cas. “I don’t want to.”

“OK,” Sam said. “That’s settled. Now can we eat? Dad made roast beef, and it smells great.”

He reopened the door and went inside. Dean followed, and Castiel followed him.

“Here’s Dean, and we have a special guest appearance,” Sam announced cheerfully. Just as in Dean’s vision, John and Mary were seated at opposite ends of a big oak table, John carving slices of roast beef. Eileen was sitting in a chair facing the door, and waved as she saw Dean and Cas. Mary said with a delighted smile, “All my favorite people!”

There were only five chairs at the table, and Dean said, “I’ll go find a chair.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Eileen said. She stood and picked up her own chair, which somehow remained in place as Eileen put the chair she’d picked up to her right. “Have a seat, Castiel.”

Sam rapidly slid into the chair across from Eileen, which meant Dean had to sit across from Cas. “It just struck me,” Sam said, looking at Eileen’s and Mary’s plates. “Meat?”

“Self-sacrificing cows,” John said with a perfect deadpan. Sam blinked, and the women burst into laughter.

As John explained about Heavenly food, Dean studied Sam, thinking.

That tone of Sam’s, at the door. “You know that not everything is about you, right?. . . Now can we eat? Dad made roast beef, and it smells great.”

It was all logical stuff to say, and probably anyone else would have taken it at face value. But the guy who’d been running cons with Sam since the kid was about eleven knew that tone. It was the tone of an impatient FBI agent demanding police reports about a case, or an overconfident “sucker” placing a huge bet at a pool table.

Sam was playing a role. He was up to something.

“So.” John was looking at Dean. “Everything went OK out there? Got the car back?”

“Yeah, no problem.” If Sam could act, Dean could too, using a hearty tone. “Carried the damn gas can all the way out there, it vanished, car started up just fine. Don’t know what – “ his breath ran a little short, but he managed the rest of the sentence fairly well. “Don’t know what that was supposed to teach me. But I did work up an appetite.”

“Well, pass that to your brother, next one’s for you,” John said, handing Dean a plate.

“Eileen and I are going into the city in a couple of days,” Sam said. “I’m trying to get ideas for a project.”

“Are you having a hard time thinking of one?” Mary asked.

“The opposite. I’ve got so many ideas I don’t know where to start. I’m hoping that something we see or do in the city will narrow it down for me.” He turned to John. “What was the toughest project you’ve had so far?”

“Well – I got hit with something once, that was tough. It wasn’t really a project, though.”

John told the story about his weakness as he dished up Dean’s food and handed it to him. Dean dove into it – in part delighted that he was able to, in part because it gave him something to look at besides Cas.

“But as far as projects go, the toughest one was building this cabin. Your mother and I did it together, and I won’t speak for her, but it took a lot – finding people who could teach us how to frame it right, getting the materials, actually doing the work.”

“It was hard,” Mary said. “For me, I think the most difficult thing was when I was helping Karen with the souls of children. They can communicate perfectly well, of course, and they actually seem more at home than adults when they get here. But they still need a lot of help learning how to be independent, and reassurance waiting for their family, and I was always afraid I’d mess them up for eternity somehow. Karen just laughed at me, but she has a natural knack for it. For me, building the cabin was easier, in a lot of ways.”

“I’d go outside from doing wiring or whatever, and she’d be standing there with a hammer or a chinking gun, staring at the place,” John said affectionately. “She’d say, ‘Look at the angle of the roofline against the trees’ or ‘Look at how beautiful the wood is against that green backdrop.’ It didn’t surprise me when she started painting.”

“And then I spent so much time looking at buildings for my painting that now I want to study architecture.”

“And I’m still happy with my cars,” John said. “I guess, if I’m supposed to learn something or change my attitude about something, it’ll have to come out to the workshop with me.”

Sam choked on a muffled laugh. Dean shot him a look, and Sam cleared his throat. “Sorry. I’m eating too fast, this is really good. Eileen, what was your toughest project so far?”

“Standing still,” she said ruefully. “We’re not angels, obviously, but if enough human souls gather and focus, there’s a chance that we can have an influence on living people. It depends on our numbers and our concentration, and whether the living people are open to spiritual influence. Well, a woman asked me to help. She was gathering a group to influence the leaders in a small town in Mozambique, where she came from. She got us all together, told us about the people and the issue, then had us link hands and focus. Well, it didn’t take too long before I started getting impatient.”

Dean nodded sympathetically, and Sam’s mouth quirked in a smile.

“And then I could tell that something was happening, a sense of energy all around us that we were building and directing. That was interesting, but after a while, I started wondering if this was it. I kept thinking, let me go down and haunt a couple of these people, I’ll set them straight.”

“Now who does that sound like?” Mary asked with amusement.

“I can be patient,” John said.

“The woman who’d done the organizing kept putting a hand on my shoulder, trying to get me to concentrate. And finally I got a feeling that I was becoming part of the energy, that we were really doing it, that we were affecting the way someone was thinking. I don’t know if we influenced everyone, but we got something done. The woman was very pleased, and thanked us all, but she hasn’t asked me to help influence anyone since then.”

The table laughed, and Castiel said, “But you did do it. You did stand still and focus as long as required.”

“Pretty much. I could do it again, if it was important. But it was the hardest project I had.”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter what I try to do here,” Sam said, “nothing is going to be harder than my hardest project on Earth.”

“What was that?” Mary asked.

“Getting Eileen to marry me.”

Castiel voiced the general confusion. “I had thought that you and Eileen were a very natural pairing.”

“Pairing is one thing,” Eileen said. “Marrying is another. I was so used to dealing with things by myself, it was – well, let’s be honest, it scared me to think about committing to someone else. For life. Trying to deal with someone else’s priorities.”

“You make yourself sound selfish,” Sam said. “There are reasons why a hunter gets skittish about marriage. If you keep hunting, there’s a good chance that the person you’re bonded to dies violently, and soon. If you stop hunting, that doesn’t mean that you’re safe from monsters and demons. Some of those things hold grudges.”

“I kept thinking, how can we even think about having children, knowing what might come after us? And I’ve spent my whole adult life hunting by myself. I’d probably be a terrible wife and a terrible mother.”

“So how’d you manage it?” John asked Sam.

Sam turned his head to look at John, but shot a glance at Dean as he said, “Patience. I actually told her I understood what she was going through, and I wasn’t going to push her, but I wasn’t giving up either.”

And now Dean understood what Sam was up to.

“I made sure that I followed through on everything I said I’d do, no matter how trivial. I wanted her to know that she could trust me to be there even when things were tough, or boring, or we disagreed on something. And every time we had a few days without a hunt, I tried to relax as much as I could, so I could let her relax. Give her the idea of what a normal life could be like, and that she could be as good at normal life as she is at hunting.”

“He put up with so much,” Eileen said guiltily.

“It wasn’t like you were playing hard to get for fun,” Sam said. “You were damn scared. For good reason. But to win over someone as great as you? Worth it. Worth every second.”

Dean sat back a little in his chair, looking at his food without seeing it, smiling a little, feeling warm and whole.

And then damned if Sam didn’t turn to him and say with a straight face, “So Dean, do you have any projects in mind?”

Dean almost laughed. He did chortle a little as he said, “Yeah. A couple of them, in fact.”

“What are they?” Eileen asked.

“Well, one of them is building a house.”

“Want our help with that?” John asked.

“Absolutely.”

“So a house first, and then – ” Mary said.

“Actually, I’m thinking I’ll do them both at once.” Dean looked at Castiel as if casually as he said, “The second one is more personal, it’s kind of a self-improvement project. I’m going to fix some things in myself that I didn’t fix in life.”

“That sounds harder than standing still,” Eileen said, wide-eyed.

“No kidding. But as Sam said, if the end result is something worthwhile, then I can put in the effort.”

“And the end result is a better Dean?” Mary asked. 

“Yeah. I’m going to make a great house and make myself into someone worthy of living in a great house. Maybe with someone else great.”

Mary looked as if she’d just grasped something, and took a sip of iced tea that covered her smile.

Eileen shrugged. “I think you already are worthy of that.”

“Thanks, Eileen.”

“What do you think, Cas?” Sam asked. “You think a human can change, if he’s persistent about it?”

Cas looked directly at Dean, then at Sam. “It is extremely hard for human beings to change lifelong patterns.”

“No question,” John said, pushing peas onto his fork with a knife.

“But at the same time – ”

“It is possible,” Mary said softly.

Castiel smiled at her. “It is. And, whatever his flaws, Dean is a remarkable human being.”

“True,” Sam said.

“And there are very few things – ”

Cas broke off in the middle of his sentence a second time, and everyone looked at him in surprise.

“There are – Even where there is damage, there are very few people, very few situations, that are broken beyond repair.”

Sam, toasting apparently himself with iced tea, said, “Especially here.”

“Especially here,” Castiel said, and smiled at Dean. “It is Heaven, after all.”

THE END


End file.
